What he actually did was step further onto my board.
I pull up the files again. Financial trails. Shell accounts. Favors exchanged quietly over the last decade. Lena didn’t disappearafter stealing from my uncle. She redefined herself. Learned patience. Learned presentation. Learned how to weaponize legitimacy.
Clever, but not clever enough.
The difference between Lena and me is that she believes survival is victory. I believe endings matter.
I don’t intend to destroy her publicly. That would splash too far, risk collateral damage. Jessica doesn’t deserve to have her life defined by spectacle or scandal.
No, Lena will be neutralized the way power should be handled.
Quietly. Permanently.
Her access will dry up. Her accounts will freeze under investigations she can’t outrun. Michaelsson will learn his wife’s past just as his campaign begins to fracture, and he’ll be forced to choose between her and his future.
He’ll choose wrong.
They always do.
When the marriage collapses, Lena will be exposed without being ruined. Stripped of leverage. Reduced to a woman with a long memory and nowhere to apply it.
Alive. Contained. Finished.
That’s the cycle ending.
I glance back at the bedroom and force myself to stay where I am, to finish thinking like a man who makes decisions that last.
She will be tested when the truth fully settles. When she understands exactly who her mother is, and what she herself could become if she chose ambition over integrity.
That’s the choice that matters.
Not whether she stays with me.
But why.
I don’t want obedience born of fear or protection alone. I want her eyes clear when she stands beside me. I want her choosing me with full knowledge of the cost.
Power is easy to take, but consent is earned.
When she wakes, I’ll tell her everything. About Lena. About Michaelsson. About what I’m doing and why. I’ll give her the truth without varnish, and then I’ll step back far enough that she can decide.
If she walks, I’ll still protect her. If she stays, the world will adjust around us.
This is the part no one ever understands about a kingmaker. The goal isn’t power. The goal is deciding which futures are allowed to exist, and which ones vanish into obscurity.
I turn from the window and finally go to her, sitting on the edge of the bed. I brush my knuckles lightly along her shoulder, grounding myself in the simple reality of her warmth.
Jessica stirs, eyes blinking open, still heavy with sleep.
I meet her gaze steadily.
“Food’s here,” I say quietly. “You need to eat.”
She smiles lazily as she stretches, the sheet slipping and reminding me what I said no to earlier.
God, I want her so much my balls are already throbbing for release.
“If you want me to rest,” she says, sitting up against the headboard, “you need to stop looking at me like that.”
